1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of user interfaces and more particularly to software that facilitates self service dashboard construction.
2. Description of the Related Art
Individuals are sometimes faced with the task of monitoring certain information feeds such as stock values, weather reports, news headlines or the status of one or more computers. In an effort to facilitate the administration of such information feeds, dashboard-like user interfaces are often used. A dashboard is a user interface that is designed to provide visual presentations of information feeds. A dashboard may obtain information from the local operating system in a computer, from one or more remote applications that may be running, and/or from one or more remote sites on a network, and present it all on one interface. Dashboard software, however, can be costly to develop, expensive to purchase, difficult to use and complicated to understand.
Another approach to monitoring multiple information feeds includes the use of mashups. A mashup is a web application that combines data or user interface elements from more than one source into a single integrated tool. Content used in mashups is typically sourced from a third party via a public interface or API (web services). Other methods of sourcing content for mashups include web feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom), and screen scraping. The architecture of a mashup web application is composed of three parts: 1) the content provider, i.e., the source of the data or the information feed, 2) the application that integrates the different data sources and 3) the client web browser or the user interface of the mashup. Mashups, however, don't come without their drawbacks.
Mashup must be developed according to the needs of individual users, which customization can be costly. Further, mashups are hard-coded to constantly present defined data sources. This is not always desirable since real estate on computer desktops is valuable and users may only desire to view select data sources in certain cases. A conventional mashup, for example, may display information for a selection of information feeds being monitored. Due to the complexity of mashup and dashboard, it is almost impossible for the average user to construct a self service dashboard.
Therefore, there is a need to overcome the deficiencies with the prior art and more particularly for a more efficient way to create and render user interface elements that monitor multiple informational feeds.